Lillard is the only one giving effort, for Everyone else is comes and goes, not much of the ball movement. No bench threats. Evan Turner is meant to be the secondary ball handler but he isn't creating anything and his shooting is awful even by his low standards. Fast break points don't exist.

Zach Collins was always going to be a work in progress having not even been a starter in NCAA but he has hardly played at all. I saw the logic of the Kings and Blazers doing the trade as the Blazers probably wanted the best big option they could get and the Kings wanted to address a couple of needs and took a SF in Jackson and still got a big in Giles at 20.

Portland also moved Allen Crabbe to save cap space so are probably missing his shooting from the bench too this season.

I don't think anything's wrong with them. At 13-11 they are about right where I would've expected them to be.

The blazers are a solid team that can challenge for a playoff spot every year, but have a roster constructed with some pretty glaring weaknesses that haven't really been addressed in the past few seasons. They can look like an elite team for stretches when their best players are clicking and can carry them, but they don't have the overall depth to sustain it over long stretches and will inevitably regress to the mean in the long run. They are basically an average team and their record reflects that.

Dame and CJ don't try much on defense, which is why they have to use lineups with Aminu and Harkless (who aren't the best fits next to them offensively) to cover up. They traded Crabbe who was their only source of shooting from the bench. The Turner signing from 2 years ago still makes no sense. Meyers Leonard is one of the worst players in the league. Nurk came back down to earth now that teams had enough film to come up with a proper game plan to defend pick & rolls featuring him. Their PF position is still a joke.

Let's just be frank Dame & CJ won't work together. They are essentially the same player at 6'3. Dame is more physical/explosive & a better distributor. While CJ is more crafty and efficient. Both are nothing more than average at best defensively. They'd require an almost perfect roster built around them to be a success and despite Portlands willingness to support a high payroll they've made a series of questionable decisions that have brought them to this point.

The question is if it doesn't work, who goes Dame (the face of the franchise) or CJ (might actually be the better player overall)?

The GM has overpaid for most of their roster which leaves you with what we see today:

Dame,Nurkic and C.J all are very good but other than that what is on this roster?

Evan turner overpaid.

Meyers leonard overpaid...

Bench depth got worse with Allen crabbe being traded...

The worst part is they have no cap room until the 20/21 season or 21/22 season when everyone comes off books.

As for their draft grade they should have taken Jarret allen and Kyle Kuzma(15+20 pick) over Zach Collins(who is a major work in progress)

This team is that position where they are good enough to make the playoffs but not to really make much noise until they balance out the roster around key pieces: either by salary dumping with picks(which they have some) to make room for needs or by some how getting a very very good pick(they have their own 1st rounder if they get really bad) to be the missing piece for them...

If they could some how get the right forwards(pf/sf) they would be a scary matchup for anyone...